Chelsea Youth 3-0 Barnsley Youth, Friday 15th February 2013

Chelsea away (Youth Cup) or 'An Audience With Simon Davey'

Well, it even pays to go and watch the juniors these days, even if they were outclassed in the FA Youth Cup and lost 3-0.  Cos, as we waited for a taxi after the match, who else should also be waiting for one but Simon Davey!

It was Starf*cker Tim who spotted him (obviously) and Surreytyke Kim who confirmed it, with a cheery ‘Simon!’ getting him to turn our way.  Like a shark going for the kill, we were in.  The taxi firm handily sent a minibus, so we all jumped in together to the station (well, not Surreytykes, who live about 5 mins from Staines FC!).  Tim, Andy, Simon, his American mate and me then got a train together, before Tim insisted everyone came to the pub at Waterloo for a bevvy.  So, all in all, a good hour (even for Simon – we TRIED to be nice!)

Tis true, I sort of DID insult Davey, but it came out wrong (!)  All I said was that I didn’t think it was him outside the ground, cos he looked fatter than the old Davey….'which was ironic cos I remember at Norwich the fans calling you a fat Welsh ba5tard’.  He took it in good spirit, though his mate thought it was funnier.

Turns out Davey is now coaching 6000 kids in Atalanta, USA and the geezer with him was from his club.  They were over cos Davey was doing the cup draw (the theme was ‘FA Cup folklore’ he told us), their club has links to Chelsea (so they were staying at the hotel next to Stamford Bridge) and they were off to Arsenal the following day (THAT was some game!)  And no, he has no intention of returning, life is good.  Family life is now amazing, without his daughters being teased at school cos ‘daddy is about to get the sack’ (these are the Barnsley years) and there’s no more random tears when the family have their evening meal.  He even showed us a video of one of his daughters being serenaded by her male American high school chums, where she’s obviously very popular (I could see why).

As for what we garnered from Mr Davey, I’ll be boring and put what I can remember into bullet points.

• We turned down £1.2m for JCR from Reading (only to sell him months later for £150k.)
• Davey is adamant playing JCR at central midfield was the right thing to do.  ‘He only scored 2 or 3 a season till I moved him there.’  Our jaws hit the floor.  It wasn’t how WE remembered it!  We didn’t hammer the point tho…as I said, we were on our best behaviour in front of his guest.  Tim mentioned we’d seen JCR play central mid for Jamaica too ‘Exactly!’ said Simon.  ‘And he didn’t play again!’ said I.  The art of diplomacy.
• At BFC a certain board member was constantly undermining him, till he ‘got rid of him after 2 and a half years.’
• Cryne can’t be relied upon either.  After the Reading fiasco, the club had agreed to up JCR’s wage from 2 to 6k a week, but the powers that be always made themselves scarce when it was time to get the contract signed.  JCR was understandably p***ed off.
• He was pleased to get rid of the drinkers in the team….Kay, Austin and Howard.  He said Kay was the worst (best?).
• I asked him about Darlington (my 2^nd team, where he had another dodgy spell) – ‘Hereford and Darlington were run by crooks’, promises constantly broken.

He obviously felt hard done to at Oakwell, being sacked and all.  I did say that he was lucky to get the job in the 1^st place, as I thought the previous manager (Ritchie) was hard done to too.  So what goes around comes around.

We all left on good terms.  Davey posed for a couple of photos and Tim got him to sign an autograph with the next day’s cup draw on it:  2 v 4 (Barnsley v Millwall).  We know how THAT turned out!  All in all, he seemed like a decent bloke.  Not a pushover, confident in his thoughts on football and, I’d say, a steely determination to succeed.


Chelsea 3-0 Barnsley
Completely outclassed, once the 1^st went in, the score was never in doubt.  Having caught a train to Staines, we jumped into a taxi and met up with Surreytykes in a pub near the ground.  A quick beer and off we went to the game.  3 quid in, a pound for a teamsheet.  I’d never heard of any of 'em.  We hung the Londontykes flag up behind the goal, then took up a position beside the dugouts.  When I looked back at the flag, there were a dozen people stood in front of it, when they could have stood ANYWHERE in the ground.  Still, it made it look like we’d travelled in numbers!

Staines have a nice little posh new stand, where 80% of the crowd was.  I’d be hard pushed to say there were more than 300 at the game.  We missed an early chance, then we spent 20 minutes camped in our own half, no danger.  Then, once Chelsea scored, the floodgates opened and we were 3 down in no time.  2 of them were from the edge of the box.  I don’t think we’ll see this keeper play for the 1^st team.  Mind, no-one impressed me much, though I heard a few Chelsea say they thought out left back was tremendous, and Davey said the left winger played well (I suspect they were describing the same player)

So, at half time, off we followed Tim to blag our way into the exec bit.  ‘You need a ticket’ said a jobsworth on the door and Tim duly showed him his London to Staines rail ticket. No, we couldn’t come in.  But, if we walked out of the ground, and back into the stand, we could go in the bar which was built into the stand, part of the swanky gym in there. Now, here’s where a good dose of local knowledge comes in handy, as Kim and Andy knew the building, so we wound our way through its innards and ended up in the exec bit anyway.  We bought a round of drinks  but no, we couldn’t have some free curry, not without a ticket (damn tickets!) but 5 mins later we were in a box of our own, with free curry of our own, served by a man, on his own…and being regaled by the Commercial Director of Staines Town FC (yes, there is such a thing).  Lovely lady she was and for £500 we could have our own board at the ground, 2 free season tickets…etc etc.  My red and white scarf and northern accent was clearly not enough to put her off.  I left £500 lighter (not really).
So it was that we problies saw 15 mins of the 2^nd half from behind a window, before going back out into the chilled air and (me and Tim) standing up at the back of the stand for the rest of the game, taking in a swell view.

Good effort Reds on getting so far - but as Tim said, it was 'men v boys'.  Or slightly better boys v our boys.

Ho hum - MK Dons tomorra!